The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, has reacted to the detention of his vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, and seven ministers of his government in an official statement from Brussels broadcast by Catalan public broadcaster TV3 this evening in which he warned that the Spanish state's repression will be "long and fierce". "The fury with which the Spanish state has attacked that which has made us an old European nation is out-of-control and threatens everything. But not only can we not weaken, but we have to fight, in the way that we Catalans do things, without violence, with peace, with respect for all opinions and people," he said.
"The freedom of Catalonia is not possible if there are Catalans who are not free to defend their ideas and fulfil their democratic commitments. Behind bars, the legitimate government of Catalonia is infinitely more respectable than its deluded imprisoners," he said.
The message was recorded in an as-yet unidentified room, without any kind of identification or symbol. Puigdemont appeared very serious, wearing a dark suit and holding a few sheets of paper which he kept referring to during the speech, apparently not having a teleprompter as he would normally use. The message was broadcast immediately before TV3's evening news, during a special program that the station had organised to cover the arrests.
The president described the Spanish state's decision as a "very serious mistake and a very serious attack on democracy". "Imprisoning political leaders for having fulfilled their electoral commitment with a wide support behind it violates the basic principles of democracy," he said.
The president said that with this gesture the Spanish government has renounced the necessary, essential dialogue to solve the political problems. "Instead of backing dialogue, they've gone for police violence, as we saw on 1st October [during the referendum], and for imprisonments, and backed the path of repression," he criticised.
For this reason, he warned that today's events are an attack against the 21st December elections, which will take place in a climate of repression and unprecedented political imprisonments, unacceptable in 21st century Europe. The president warned that it's no longer a Spanish internal matter and that the international community needs to realise the danger represented by this attitude.
Puigdemont demanded, emphasising that he did so as the president of the legitimate government of Catalonia which resulted from the elections on 27th September 2015, the release of the vice-president and ministers, respect for all political options and an end to the repression. He also said that imprisoning a government that came from the ballot box for fulfilling its electoral manifesto falls outside of the rule of law.
The president ended with a message of support for the families of his "colleagues and friends" who are "unjustly" imprisoned and with another message for the people of Catalonia, who he called on to peacefully fight back against the Spanish state's repression. "Visca Catalunya!" (Long live Catalonia), ended the president.